It’s Preservation Week! In an effort to raise awareness of the need for preservation of all kinds, every day this week we will highlight one of the many ways our staff support collections at Duke University Libraries. Our first stop is the circulating collection.
Today Senior Conservation Technician Mary Yordy is working on a mesmerizing book in need of some help.
This visual album about Barneys New York shows a common problem with modern art books: the flimsy case construction of the binding just doesn’t stand up to the weight of the textblock. While it is down here in the lab, Mary will repair the rear hinge of the book, rejoining the text to the binding and allowing it to function again for many more circulations.
The publisher of this item really went all out with the endpapers and “chameleon” metallic edge treatment!
For Preservation Week we are sharing a “Day In The Lab” montage. Today the lab is full of activity and fun projects. Who would suspect that all of this goes on under your feet as you walk into the library? Hope you had a great Preservation Week.
Jennifer is boxing up “Mr. Money” aka “The Man” from the Human Rights Archives. This is a very large puppet with a paper mache head and a PVC-pipe body.Meg is washing a giant book, page by page.Tedd just finished a fabulous box for our Cigarette Rolling Machine Patent Model. All of the wheels actually spin!And Beth is outside vacuuming mouse poop droppings from a manuscript collection. This is how we get to see the outdoors during the day. Don’t be jealous.
Digital Forensics, Emulation, and the
Art of Restoration
Who: Ben Fino-Radin When: Wednesday, April 24, 4:00 p.m. Where: Perkins Library, Room 217 (Click for map) Contact: Winston Atkins (winston.atkins@duke.edu) This event is free and open to the public.
In 1991, from a basement in lower Manhattan, contemporary artist Wolfgang Staehle founded The Thing, an electronic Bulletin Board System (BBS) that served as a cyber-utopian hub for NYC-based artists integrating computers and into their creative practice.
The Thing emerged at a moment when contemporary artists were coming to grips with personal computers and the role they played in visual art. The BBS, which began as a temporary experiment, grew to become an international network of artists and ideas. Then the World Wide Web emerged and in 1995 Staehle abandoned the BBS for a web-based iteration of The Thing. The cultural record of these crucial early years, inscribed on the platters of the hard drive that hosted the BBS, was left to sit in a dusty basement.
Fast forward to 2013. Digital conservator Ben Fino-Radin reached out to Staehle to investigate the state of the BBS. Did the machine that hosted The Thing still exist? Could the board be restored to working order?
For scholars interested in the intersection of art and technology, the ability to investigate the contents of the BBS and observe its original look and feel would help flesh out the history of the emergence of personal computers and visual art. Unhappily, it was discovered that the computer that hosted The Thing BBS was at some point discarded.
Join Ben Fino-Radin on Wednesday, April 24th, to discuss the process of digital forensics, investigation, and anthropology involved in the process of restoring The Thing BBS from the scattered bits and pieces of evidence that managed to survive, and how this story serves as a case-study in the need for a new model of digital preservation in archives.
About the Speaker
Ben Fino-Radin is a New York-based media archaeologist and conservator of born-digital and computer-based works of contemporary art. At Rhizome at the New Museum, he leads the preservation and curation of the ArtBase, one of the oldest and most comprehensive collections of born-digital works of art. He is also in practice in the Conservation Department of the Museum of Modern Art, managing the Museum’s repository for digital assets in the collection, as well as contributing to media conservation projects. He is near completion of an MFA in digital arts and MS in Library and Information Science at Pratt Institute. He holds a BFA in New Media from Alfred University.
“Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology.” (from the Rhizome mission statement)
Welcome to the final day of our Preservation Week video rodeo roundup. Today is a grab bag of preservation and conservation related videos, and a couple plain ol’ library videos, that we like. If you have found others you like that are in this same genre, please leave a link in the comments.
Book artist and author Bea Nettles on learning about preservation and how it has changed her work.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE0cx4gM_fo
LYRASIS (formerly SOLINET) shows you how to safely remove a paperclip. I know you want to send this to all of your processors, don’t you? They will also show you how to remove staples.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI27vwFuEjM
Library security from the T.C. Beirne Law Library at the University of Queensland, Australia.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsRNYIdiVdE
Just for fun: In 2009 to take a break from studying, an estimated 3,000 students created a flashmob at the UNC Chapel Hill Davis Library. Hmmm, today is the last day of classes here, I wonder if our students will do something like this?
Welcome to part four of our Preservation Week video roundup. Today we have for your enjoyment some fun videos on not-so-fun topics: insects and disasters.
First up, my favorite insect video from the University of Florida Smathers Library Preservation Department. This, my friends, is why you want to keep the lid on the trash cans.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcV-5C8tDP0
From our former colleague comes this humorous video. Thanks to UNC-Greensboro Preservation Committee for a fun look at insects in the library.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SD_HaAw-4Q
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne Preservation Department recently put together some books on shelves to see what happens when a sprinkler head goes off. It’s always fun to watch books get wet.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD66a9cTa_c
After a flash flood hit the Hamilton Library on the campus of the University of Hawaii, the Conservation Department had to clean and repair the damage.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi9jYpWo4oM
Just for fun: Mr. Bean tries to thwart security at his local library.
Welcome to part three of our Preservation Week video roundup. Today, some videos on preserving digital content. If you have favorite videos on this topic, please let us know about them in the comments section.
Team Digital Preservation always brings humor to the complicated issues of digital preservation. Tune in for their wacky, yet insightful, adventures.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGFOZLecjTc
Abby Smith Rumsey recently gave a lecture at Yale University titled “But Storage is Cheap…Digital Preservation in the Age of Abundance.” Well worth the time to view, and thanks to Yale for posting their Preservation Lecture Series videos online.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk9ccNP9xTk
The Library of Congress presents basic issues of preserving digital content in this short video. Great for the non-preservation professional audience.
The Library of Congress talks to teens about longevity of digital media. We all need to do more to reach out to youth to get them interested now. Have you had success with this dear reader?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fhu7s0AfmM
Just for fun: What would the help desk have looked like back when books were the new technology?
It’s day two of Preservation Week. In today’s video roundup we share some of our favorite care and handling videos. If you have a favorite care and handling video, give us the link in the comment section.
The classic video is “Murder in the Stacks.” Thanks to Columbia University, this timeless (OK, maybe “historic”) video is now online for all to enjoy.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phyFPJD-CGs
This video is one of the best, and shortest, care and handling videos we have seen. Produced by Middlebury College Preservation and Processing Unit (Department?).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kog2yXMRRfs
At George Mason University, taking care of books is FUN.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX1Eiz7rLwg
Daniel Ireton created this fabulous video…modern videos meet olde tyme production. Hey Daniel, what library is this?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfegfUyoxQc
Just for fun: A reminder that food in the library is generally frowned upon.
Happy 2nd Annual Preservation Week to you all. There are many exciting events happening across the country for PW this year. To find an event near you, simply find one on the ALA PW map.
In our library, the Preservation Office is hosting a lecture by Ryan Shaw on Wednesday, details can be found at our previous blog post.
Here at Preservation Underground we are hosting a Preservation Video Rodeo Roundup. Each day will have a theme, and we will link to videos related to that theme that we have found on the web. There are tons of videos out there, we will link to our favorites. Please participate! If you have favorite preservation, conservation or digitization themed videos we should know about, tell us about it in the comment section.
Today’s Theme: Conservation
The J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah put together a fine video showing their beautiful conservation lab. This video highlights some of the work they are doing in both the book lab and the paper lab. Hosted by Randy Silverman, Preservation Librarian.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQNmEDkyOEU
Brigham Young University has a hilarious take on the old TV show called ER. In this video, titled “BR” you get to see the work of the “book doctors” in the conservation lab.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyNbUWvq2mM
The Georgia Archives offers this fantastic video on a recent project to conserve a map dating from 1808.
Written by Winston Atkins, DUL Preservation Officer. For more information on this event, contact him at Winston [dot] Atkins [at] duke ___edu. More information can also be found on the event page.
As part of the Duke University Libraries’ Preservation Week activities, our Office of Preservation is sponsoring a talk by Professor Ryan Shaw entitled “Event as Data: Conceptual Infrastructure for History,” based on his use of technology to examine traditional approaches to organizing knowledge.
This will be an interesting opportunity to hear how faculty use traditional sources and new technology in their research, and to convey their results. Especially exciting for those of us in preservation, it will offer us an opportunity to see the sorts of presentations of research that we will be called upon to preserve. You can read a more complete description of the presentation here: http://library.duke.edu/news/main/2011/article56.html.
Heritage Preservation, the sponsors of May Day 2010, has pulled our name from a hat and awarded us a prize for our May Day blog post. Four winners from all of the participants were randomly drawn by members of the DC 16 firehouse, Heritage Preservation’s local firemen. Very fitting, no?
Our prize is six Rescubes, perfect for those days when you come into work after a long summer holiday weekend only to discover that a water fountain pipe burst sometime at the beginning of that three day weekend, and there are three floors of wet carpeting and a small mold issue to deal with. Not that we would know from personal experience. [It’s all cleaned up now and dehumidifiers and carpet fans are on scene.] Happy Tuesday!
As part of the Duke University Libraries’ Preservation Week activities, our 